


Purple

by bloodscrolls



Category: Red Velvet (K-pop Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Domestic, F/F, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-19
Updated: 2018-07-19
Packaged: 2019-06-12 21:28:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15349122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bloodscrolls/pseuds/bloodscrolls
Summary: Seungwan looks at her relationship with Joohyun through purple-tinted lenses.





	Purple

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by [redvelvetfics](https://archiveofourown.org/users/redvelvetfics/pseuds/redvelvetfics) in the [RedVelvetFics_Round_Two](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/RedVelvetFics_Round_Two) collection. 



> **Prompt:**
> 
> Irene/Wendy

If Joohyun had taught Seungwan anything, it would most definitely be opening up Seungwan’s eyes to the myriad shades of purple. Having been chided endlessly for conflating lavender, rasin, mulberry and violet into a single _purple_ on different occasions has left Seungwan scrambling to be more sensitive to the different shades. She still trembles slightly recalling Joohyun’s glare when the word _purple_ toppled carelessly out of her mouth after Joohyun so carefully picked the _magenta_ sheets for their bed, and the repeated times Joohyun would flash her the colour chart naming the various shades of purple. She tries to remember, but (seemingly useless) information like these tend to elude her, so she comes up with a way to make her brain work better, and also make Joohyun who is always a little piqued at her ignorance, a little happier for a change.

 

**Lavender**

“Yes, yes I’ll get those,” Seungwan haphazardly points to the bunch of purple flowers tucked neatly on one of the shelves in the florist shop.

“Oh, you mean lavenders? Good choice.”

Seungwan nods aimlessly. It wasn’t like she didn’t know her flowers – she had gotten flowers for her previous lovers before (roses were always a safe bet, and sunflowers seemed to always have a way with the less conventional ladies who were often looking for something new). Ok maybe that was _too_ basic a knowledge to admit she _knew_ her flowers, but she really wanted to impress Joohyun and after finding out her favourite colour was purple (she had forgotten what exact shade Joohyun had mentioned, though she supposes purple in itself is good enough to impress the girl, Seungwan surmises.)

“It has no dark meaning to it, right?” Seungwan hesitantly asks the florist, with monolid eyes and a smile too happy for service industry. She’s not that superstitious but she’s not going to take chances with Joohyun seemed to possess the knowledge regarding the strangest things, which might include the meaning of purple flowers. The florist’s eyes brighten further and exuberantly responds with an “of course not! Lavenders represent elegance and grace! It really is about growing up well and being the true epitome of femininity!”

“Sounds good,” Seungwan passes her the wad of cash as the florist wraps the lavenders in a pretty bouquet, finishing off with a darker shade of purple as a ribbon to bind them together.

“I hope she likes the lavenders!”

\---

The words had cropped up so many times Seungwan did not understand how she could forget the very name of flowers.

“I got… uhm, these… flowers, for you.”

Joohyun blushes as she takes the bouquet with her two small palms, her head slightly bowed out of abashment. “Thank you, they’re beautiful.”

“I heard they represent elegance and grace,” Seungwan replies, clumsily trying to finish off with a wink, which looked a lot more like a twitch in her eye, but _it’s ok, it’s ok,_ she reasons, _Joohyun likes the purple flowers, and by extension, likes me too!_

“So… you like them right?” The silence lingers in the air for a bit and Seungwan finds Joohyun simply gazing at her in a way that makes her breath hitch and palms clammy, so she tries to fill the silence with what she hopes is a comfortable conversation, but Seungwan being Seungwan, only manages to fill the silence with her stupidity as the words “you know… the purple flowers…?” topple out of her mouth, with no chance of her being able to retrieve them back. 

Joohyun cocks her head slightly to the side, before the revelation hits her that Seungwan has no idea what the flowers are called after all. She grins as she pats Seungwan’s head softly, “they’re lavenders, babe, and I appreciate the effort although I don’t understand how you could forget what they’re called but remember what they represent.”

_It’s time to save yourself, Seungwan_ – “that’s because elegance and grace remind me of you.”

Joohyun is quite the sucker for genuine sweet-talk, so needless to say, Seungwan passes that date night despite the near kamikaze.

 

**Lilac (or the colour of jealousy)**

“And she – she was amazing. I thought I wouldn’t be able to make it through high school you know, with everyone being so superficial and I didn’t know what were their true motives making friends with me I just decided to keep to myself… then she came along and I- I just had a good feeling about her…

“Mmhmm…” Seungwan briefly mumbles as a signal for her to continue.

“And the chance just occurred one day when she forgot her gym clothes and I was like that’s it, that’s how I can be a friend to her! Right?” Seungwan nods before Joohyun proceeds, “it just progressed from there. And that’s why I like purple now. Even though she specifically likes lilac, but…”

Sometimes her tongue runs dry and she feels the ridges made by mild scalding from her coffee more acutely – the dips and edged-ness of the ridges on her tongue. She doesn’t attribute it to lack of hydration, she believes she drinks more than enough water to be dehydrated. If anything, she should be labelled aquaholic for being so conscious about how many litres of water she drinks daily. Yet there is a tension in her that dries her up like a desert, a tension that renders her stiff like the back of a sun-baked reptilian creature. It is a feeling that runs all the way to the back of her throat and she must cough to activate her salivary glands before her throat is soothed again. It is a cough that draws Joohyun back from her thoughts, one that makes her wonder why Seungwan’s cough sounds like one that hints for her to _stop talking_ , and somewhere inside her contriteness ripples in her veins. She doesn’t quite know why.

“What?”

“What?”

“Why did you suddenly cough?”

“I didn’t.”

“Yes, you did.” Joohyun firmly states, putting an end to a conversation that was circling around nothingness, though it is a nothingness both of them know slowly sinks around them, the air heavy and thick with a sense of awareness but the lack of courage to confront. Seungwan finds the feeling bubbling inside her totally unfounded but cannot find the means to make it go away, and it rises up to the base of the throat like acid, _the word_ rises up to the base of her throat like acid…

_Lilac._

“What?” Joohyun repeats, certain the conversation was heading somewhere somewhere now.

“Nothing,” Seungwan whispers, not wanting to go wherever the conversation was supposedly going.

“I heard you say lilac,” Joohyun states as a matter of fact, “in a rather _resentful_ manner”, and finishes with a snigger as if this was the effect she wanted to have on Seungwan after telling the story all along. It gets harder to swallow the lump in her throat and then –

Oh. _Oh_. It is the feeling of jealousy.

Seungwan remains silent. It’s stupid, and childish – and – why would your favourite colour be the same as your crush’s, no scratch that, your first high school friend’s favourite colour? That’s stupid, and such a lack of backbone and what about all the other colours who have yet to make an impression on you and–

“You’re furrowing your eyebrows, Wan.”

“So?”

“You’re jealous.” _Caught_.

“Lilac is such a lame word anyway. It doesn’t even sound nice.”

Joohyun bursts into laughter, as if that one statement was all she needed to prove her speculation that Son Seungwan was childishly jealous over her first high school friend. 

“And you’re childish.”

“I’m not talking to you, lilac princess,” Seungwan replies bitterly, arms folded with her lips turned into a pout. Joohyun giggles and pulls her girlfriend in for an embrace.

“I love you, too, Wannie.”

Wrapped in Joohyun’s embrace, Seungwan barely catches the small voice that glides into the corners of her ears, “my favourite colour of purple isn’t lilac anyway.”

 

**Violet**

There are a few times Seungwan finds her breath being taken away. One of these times includes a surprise from Joohyun who had bought them tickets to a Kehlani concert. _(Seungwan was sure her cover of Honey was enough to get Joohyun addicted, but who’s bragging.)_ Joohyun drags her past hormonal adolescent girls in the mosh pit and they reach the second row after much struggle, unable to proceed any further because the most hormonal girls are the stubborn ones glued to the front, ready to throw their brassiere when Kehlani came on stage.

Lights and sounds surround them as the concert begins, speakers blaring with the crowd’s favourites as they scream out lyrics. Seungwan acutely feels adrenaline running in her blood as she jumps to the tunes with her hands in the air, worshipping her idol as she bops her head to the beats of the bass line. Joohyun wraps her arm around Seungwan’s shoulder, to calm her down whenever Seungwan seemed to be on the verge of hitting someone with her excited hands.

Seungwan tenses at the way Joohyun slides her arm around Seungwan’s shoulder, curving past her back muscles and shoulder blades before resting her palm where her trapezius meets her deltoids. She turns slowly to face Joohyun, taking time to take in Joohyun’s side profile as the music fades into the distance and all she notices are the curves that carve themselves resolutely onto her face, from her nose to her jaw. A white beam flashes in their direction as the concert plays on, and Joohyun’s hair flashes the most electric purple of sorts. Seungwan hadn’t really paid attention to Joohyun’s new colour before, simply complimenting how her girlfriend looked hot in purple.

_“Violet, Seungwan,”_ Joohyun reproved her mildly.

The pure stark whiteness of the strobe light shines brightly onto Joohyun’s hair and it is like electricity igniting in her veins as she processes this kind of purple, _violet_. It shoots something down onto the pits of her stomach, and she chides herself for calling her girlfriend just _hot_. Her girlfriend is more than hot, her girlfriend is stunning, and violet brings out the fairness of her face and the browns of her eyes – it’s ethereal, and she can’t help but inch closer before kissing Joohyun full on the lips.

Perhaps she didn’t know the colour of electric currents, but she swears the moment her lips met Joohyun then, electricity was bluish-purple, currents weaving in and out of her veins, drowning her and exhilarating her… _violet_.

 

**Magenta (it’s not just pink)**

“So which purple bedsheets do you prefer?”

“For the last time, Seungwan, these are all different shades of purple!”

Seungwan always manages to infuriate Joohyun easily, and she seems to like getting on her nerves with her favourite everything-is-purple game.

It is a game she plays often and isn’t too scared of Joohyun’s wrath (although she admits, Joohyun can get really frustrated and annoyed at her lack of effort to be educated, but it’s kind of hot, and Seungwan doesn’t mind playing with fire).

Overtime, she does learn and internalise that Joohyun’s favourite shade is _magenta_ , not an easily word to carve into your brain, but love makes her try a little harder. It is still a little difficult trying to recognise the different shades – she wants to declare she’s colour-blind at times like these when Joohyun pressures her to pick the best (not just the best purple shade, but the best shade of) magenta bedsheet for her. There is something wrong with this logic here, Seungwan is sure, because how can there be another shade of magenta if magenta is already a shade in itself – but she doesn’t want to get murdered by her fiancée in public, and she has yet to spend her happily-ever-after with Joohyun, so she’s not going to destruct by her own hands. The shop assistant holds up three magenta bedsheets for them to peruse, Joohyun takes this opportunity to evaluate each bedsheet closely moving her head closer then further to get both the micro and macro details of the linen. Seungwan, however, is stumped, and she remains at her position just staring blankly at the sheets with faux interest and deliberation.

“Ok, this one.” Joohyun points with resolve at the far-most design. “Y-yes, that one,” Seungwan hurriedly chimes in, to which Joohyun scoffs and almost gives up on Seungwan’s inability to process these colour nuances.

They pay for the sheets and go home to try putting on their bed. Seungwan is at one corner while Joohyun is at the other, both stretching the linen out so that the sheets fit snugly on the mattress. When all is done and arranged to their expectations, they jump onto the bed, and Seungwan rolls around like a child before Joohyun catches her with a back hug. Seungwan turns around and Joohyun brushes the hair out of her eyes, tucks them into the backs of her ears.“To be honest, this looks a lot more like pink…” Joohyun slaps her on the shoulder, almost offended. “It’s purplish-red, so it can look either way, but I think it looks more purple than pink."

“Should I even try to argue with you right now?”

“Nope, not with someone who doesn’t know the name of the flowers she bought for her date anyway.”

“Why do you bear grudges, Bae Joohyun?”

“It’s not a grudge if it ended up with me marrying you.”

Seungwan doesn’t find the heart to argue further, because she’s won when she made Joohyun hers, even though her brain lacks the capacity to process the shades of purple (she’s trying, really!) She’s won when Joohyun comes back to her even when she mixes up the names of purple, when she dismisses her new hair colour as purple. She’s won when she’s lying down on the same bed as her fiancée, on the same magenta sheets sharing skin and warmth.

_Magenta_.

It rolls sweetly off the tip of her tongue.

Maybe red is the symbolic colour for love, but Seungwan thinks falling out of line is fine once in awhile, especially if magenta makes her fiancée smile so wide her heart threatens to burst out of her chest. Magenta reminds her of soft satin, the way Joohyun speaks: quietly, soothingly, the way Joohyun listens: attentively, the way Joohyun touches: tenderly but ardently.

Magenta, or _love_.

 


End file.
